BIRMINGHAM CITY COUNCIL bosses have admitted 19 children have died of abuse or neglect in Birmingham in the past five years – with 16 known to social workers.

A further three youngsters suffered ‘serious injury that could have resulted in death’.

Previously Birmingham City Council had only admitted to 15 child deaths since 2004 but it issued the grim new figures after an investigation by the Sunday Mercury .

The shock news comes days after its child protection services were officially branded “not fit for purpose” in a council scrutiny report.

The inquiry was prompted after the department was labelled inadequate by Ofsted inspectors last December.

The sad new statistics show that the council, Britain’s biggest local authority, has initiated 22 Serious Case Reviews (SCR) since January 2004. Eighteen related to deaths, including two siblings who died between 2006/07.

A council spokesman confirmed that of the 19 deaths a staggering 16 were known to social workers and in some cases other agencies including West Midlands Police, local health trusts and probation.

The other three children out of the 22 cases did not die but suffered serious injury.

The shocking death toll means Birmingham City Council has by far the worst ever record for suspicious child deaths in the country.

The authority was put in special measures by the Government in January. It was one of only four authorities – including Doncaster and Haringey where Baby P died – to be judged to have inadequate children’s services last year by Ofsted.

Doncaster has had seven child deaths in the past five years. A Government team is now running its child protection services while Birmingham has been given until February to improve or face its department being taken over.

Tony Howell, Strategic Director for Children Young People and Families, is at the helm of the shamed child protection service and earns between £138,000 and £153,000 a year.

Referring to the 22 SCRs, he said: “There is more work to be done and we have plans in place. The task of protecting children in this city is enormous and is everyone’s responsibility, including the general public.

“It is also important to recognise that the Safeguarding Children’s Board itself is made up of 30 partners including health, education, police, probation and council service representatives.

“Protecting children is a collective responsibility of all the partners and we urge the general public to recognise they also have a key role to play.

“Commissioning the Scrutiny Inquiry was a painful but important part of the journey that we are on.

“Much of what was highlighted in the report has already been addressed over the last 10 months.

“Ultimately our ambition is to be gold standard when it comes to safeguarding children and I will not settle for anything less.”

The damning council report had concluded young people in care had suffered from a “decade of under-performance”. Failings identified included:

* a lack of senior management posing a “major risk” and a shortage of experienced staff “hampered progress”;

* crucial child referrals had often been made by “inexperienced staff with insufficient management oversight”;

* more than HALF of child care planning and practice was “unacceptably poor” with appalling record-keeping in relation to visits;

* 80 per cent of social workers’ time was tied up with paperwork;

* one in five social workers was off work sick at any one time, and;

* Dozens of initiatives and projects had been launched then abandoned, resulting in negligible improvements.

The report committee was also “shocked and dismayed” by the standard of some care accommodation. Social workers were often forced to work in overcrowded and crumbling buildings with unclean toilets and no room for storing files.

A source said: “At one social services’ facility, there were bins stuffed with dirty nappies in the reception area.

“Lack of space and proper facilities meant nappies were even being changed on desks. It was also discovered that files on children in care were being stored in the toilets at one premises.”

Tragic children to have died who were known to Birmingham social services include seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq, who allegedly starved to death in 2008. Her mother and stepfather are awaiting trial for her murder.

She was among four children who died within an eight-week period last year, the others being two-year-old Brandon Davies, four year-old Abdul Hakkam Fahad, and five-month-old Kasey Hand.

Kasey was the only one not known to social workers at the time of her death.

SCRs have been carried out into all four deaths.

Among the most contentious cases is Abdul Hakkam Fahad. Police are said to have urged social services to take him into care following a fire at his parents’ home in Tyseley.

Although a relatively minor blaze, it produced toxic smoke at a time when Abdul had been upstairs in the locked property.

But social services did not act despite his parents later being convicted of child cruelty in relation to the fire.

Dad Dhanial Fahad was on police bail when he accidentally reversed his van into Abdul’s tricycle on April 26 last year, killing him instantly.

Both parents were charged with manslaughter by gross neglect but they were found not guilty.

Two year-old Brandon Davies died on March 9 last year after swallowing methadone belonging to parents Benjamin Davies, 31, and Mary Norman, 23. They were later jailed for two years for causing or allowing the death of a child.

Damning evidence of Birmingham children’s services’ failure to protect the infant came to light at their court case.

After Monday’s report Colin Tucker, the new director of Birmingham Children’s Social Care, admitted too many children were being taken into care because social workers lacked basic information or the skills to judge if they were really at risk of abuse or neglect.

He said he aims to reduce the present total of 2,400 kids in care by introducing better assessment methods and by trying harder to place anyone at risk with family, friends or foster parents.

Social services bosses also pledged to cut back on expensive agency staff, abandon inadequate offices and reduce bureaucracy.

The department, which has an annual 22,000 child abuse referrals, has recently received a letter from the Government highlighting improvements that have been made.